MovieChat Forums > Psycho (1960) Discussion > "Psycho" and "The Thing" (1982)

"Psycho" and "The Thing" (1982)

posted 2 years ago by ecarle (14979)
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Elsewhere around here, swanstep noted in an OT post that in 2022, we seem to be awash in "anniversary showings" of various films -- some famous, some not so famous.

On a decade by decade basis, we've got some big ones:

1972: The Godfather (and also a little one: Hitchcock's Frenzy.")
1982: ET The Extraterrestial

Though I suppose 1962 is too "jammed packed" to pick the big one: Lawrence of Arabia? How the West Was Won? The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance? To Kill a Mockinbird? The Music Man? The Manchurian Candidate? (my fave.)

Well, back to 1982:

There are some articles out there about the 40th Anniversary of John Carpenter's remake of The Thing from 1982. I took another look at it. My memories of seeing it (opening night) are great ones. And for the most part, it still holds up. And it sure does trigger some cross-checks with some other famous fright films...

Here is a first thought: as "awful" and "graphic" and "super-gory" as Hitchcock's original Psycho in 1960 may have seemed to audiences at the time, a mere 22 years later in 1982, The Thing had gone so far past that in gore that I suppose if you put Psycho 1960 and The Thing 1982 on a double bill...Psycho would suddenly seem like a sedate Disney movie. The shower scene is abstract, with much unseen(though those knife punctures are HEARD), the gore of Arbogast's murder centers on one bloody slash to his face an an IMAGINED final pummel of knife blows at the end.

In the Thing 1982, a doctor giving CPR to a stricken patient finds the patient's stomach suddenly opening up and converting into two big jaws that bite half of the doctor's arms off! And man's head slowly detaches from his body; sprouts "Cootie legs" and scampers out of the room. And another man's head inflates and explodes in blood and becomes yet ANOTHER set of jaws that proceed to eat another man's head.

As one critic said: "these stop becoming gore scenes and turn into abstract art."

Well...maybe. Though there is a lot of gore throughout The Thing 1982, it really does boil down to TWO big shock sequences, just like Psycho did in its time: (1) The one that starts with the doctor's arms getting bit off and finishes with the head walking away and (2) the film's "landmark centerpiece sequence," as four men tied to a couch are each tested to determine if HE is The Thing. Its a great suspense sequence that does Hitchcock proud(if a lot gorier) and also has Hitchcock' s penchant for humor. Once the thing DOES reveal itself, the other men tied to the couch go berserk, and when its all over, one calm guy still chained to the couch quietly says:

"I know you gentlemen have been through quite a lot...but when you find the time...I'd rather not spend the rest of this winter TIED TO THIS F'ING COUCH!" Followed by a quiet fade to black. And in my 1982 audience...audience laughter to shake the roof. Carpenter got it -- you could salt the most horrifying horror with some laughs. (There are laughs in Psycho...just smaller.)

The 40th Anniversary articles indicate that The Thing was a flop on release, then grew its cult on VHS and beyond. One take(offered by Carpenter himself) is the The Thing with its monster alien(hey, that word)..was too "mean an alien in contrast to sweet ET" and it was just the wrong movie at the wrong time(they were released just weeks apart, The Thing second, in the summer of 1982.)

Maybe that was it. Or maybe the gore(far gorier than the summer PG "soft horror hit" Poltergeist(produced by Spielberg the same summer he directed ET, and maybe he directed Poltergeist too.)

I can offer these reasons for the failure of The Thing in 1982: The gore(very gory.) The claustrophobic setting(a snowbound Artic science outpost -- supposedly movies with snow don't do great, but I've got a list that refutes that.) An all-male cast(hey, I LIKED that.) A downbeat ending(yep.) An AMBIGUOUS ending. And I would add this one: early on The Thing(which isn't a man-like thing walking around as in the 1951 original, but rather more like a contagious organism) is disguised as a dog and placed in a dog pen with other INNOCENT dogs and proceeds to do horrible things to them, quite graphic -- you can behead MEN (and even women) by the score in a horror movie, but torture dogs? I recall some walkouts.

Yet for all of that, I loved The Thing. I consider it to be John Carpenter's best movie(far better than Halloween.) HE evidently considers it his best. The all-guy cast is great -- Kurt Russell(repeating for Carpenter after Harrison Ford and Nick Nolte turned it down) and a diverse A-list of character talent (Wilford Brimley without his moustache is SCARY, man!) The dialogue is great. The practical effects are great.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

And The Thing 1982 has plenty of historic forbears before it -- even including Psycho a little bit. But some others more famously:

1951: The Thing From Another World. This is the movie that The Thing is remaking. Both films were from a story called "Who Goes There?" that was too abstract and gory for a Hays Code 1951 movie. But both films share the same premise (alien crash lands in the snow near an Artic outpost) and atmosphere(men -- and one? two? -- women trapped in same artic outpost.) The "virus" aspect of the short story here becomes the idea of a "carrot man" capable of reproducing his own severed limbs and -- ultimately, just a great big Frankenstein's Monster of a "man" played by James Arness well before Gunsmoke.

The 1951 Thing was produced by Howard Hawks, and maybe directed by him too(ala Poltergeist and Spielberg.) Its very "Hawksian" -- men in groups at an outpost(Only Angels Have Wings, Rio Bravo), " a gal who can hang with the guys," and, of course, overlapping dialogue.

Little of that excited us kids when The Thing 1951 was on "Strange Tales of Science Fiction" in KHJ TV in LA in the 60s...it was just a really good, really tense monster movie.

And it had a big "jump shock moment" (for 1951) that I'm sure had kids screaming in 1951 theaters:

Military tough guy Kenneth Tobey and his men suspect that The Thing MIGHT be standing behind a door. They open the door and BOOM! He's right there, big as day and swinging a clawed hand at them like a knife. They fight to close the door, and do.

Nobody gets killed, but this is "The Arbogast Attack" nine years early and has rather the same effect on the young nervous system. What's funny is, this jump scare happens even as we have been PREPARED for the Thing to be behind the door. It STILL makes us jump. Well, if we are 7 or 8.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

1958: IT! The Terror Beyond Space. Rather than a Thing stalking prey at an Artic outpost, this was about an "alien creature" who stows away on a spaceship from Mars to earth. (Sound familiar?)

This too, made it on "Strange Tales of Science Fiction" and was much scarier than The Thing 51 because (a) the monster was UGLY, (b) we saw the monster jump on and attack a victim or two(ala Mother in Psycho) and (c) he drained victims of their blood, sort of "eating them" (as one spaceman says on witnessing this: "He's just over there lickin' his chops.")

1979: Alien. Alien had its big surprises with regard to its "spaceship stowaway" (how it burst out of John Hurt's chest as a very small thing , but rapidly grew taller than a man; the teeth within the teeth, and MORE) but some critics and film buffs said: "Hey, this is a ripoff of IT the Terror Beyond Space." Well, it is and it isn't. IT! was just a guy in a martian suit. Anyway, eventually the guy who wrote IT said Alien didn't bother him because "I stole the idea for IT from The Thing From Another World.")

Rather circular yes?

It has been noted that Alien got Carpenter his "Thing" greenlight because Alien had hit big. The word "alien" is even in The Thing poster. Carpenter HATED that poster, which suggested the new thing would just be ANOTHER Frankenstein's monster...but soon what few people saw it at the theater saw The Thing as a much less solid creature...it was a virus of sorts and the biggest question -- with all these guys turning into the thing was -- "If the thing is within you, do you KNOW you're the Thing?" They got a whole board on this.

I thought then and I think now that The Thing 82 was BETTER than Alien. Alien had the unique creature and the spaceship setting, but The Thing just felt better in terms of pace, and dialogue and tension. (I saw The Thing 82 with guys only and the toughest of them came out saying, "that movie gave me a HEADACHE!")

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

I sing some praises on Alien over on its board, and I certainly respect its historic "chest buster scene"(right up there with the shower scene in film history) and other parts of it. But let me zero on a scene I don't like:

The killing of Harry Dean Stanton. This a successor to Arbogast -- a man enters a place and we wait for the monster to jump out and kill him -- "a slow build up to sudden shocks" as NYT critic Bosley Crowther wrote of Psycho. My problem has always been that Stanton just aimlessly wanders around FOREVER in that water-dripping, chain-hanging corner of the spaceship, and the tension slowly DISSLOVES. He's wandering around like that because he's looking for a lost CAT -- which is a 2 points-demerit for "horror movie cliché," and it just takes forever til the monster finally shows up and shows those teeth( a great moment I must admit, but almost defeated by the wait.)

Imagine, in Psycho, Arbogast entering the house, and starting to just wander around -- maybe following a cat in there, forever and aimlessly til he FINALLY takes the stairs and gets killed. Hitch had his timing down. Now you might say -- "but what about Lila? SHE just wanders all over the house aimlessly" but she has a PURPOSE -- to check each and every room for a sign of Marion, or clues. and the suspense never dissipates.

I also felt that the kills in Alien were sometimes too hard to see, too murky, too unclear. I found out why with the final killings of Yaphet Kotto and Veronica Cartwright at the same time. A MUCH BETTER longer sequence of their joint killing was edited down into THIS murk.

So that's among the reasons that I liked The Thing 82 better than Alien, though they are both a lot of fun and worth watching again.

And Psycho? Well, its rather the "good" capture of The Thing 51 and IT The Terror Beyond Space ("Mother" is a monster, too) and set the "slasher template" that mutated into Alien and The Thing 82 years later.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

And this: Psycho, Alien and The Thing 82 share two things in particular, I think:

ONE: The arena for terror. With Alien and The Thing, there is a claustrophobia that Psycho doesn't have: the victims simply have nowhere to run to. "In space, nobody can hear you scream," and in sub-zero Artic temps, you can't leave the compound without freezing to death. So, you're stuck and the monster can just pick you off one at a time.

Psycho lacks that claustrophobic entrapment, but the Bates Motel and House are still the greatest OVERALL arena for terror in screen history. Few of us will travel in spaceships or dare the entrapped life of an Arctic outpost, but MANY of us have had the option of staying at a roadside motel. And to that "normal everyday arena for terror," htichcock got to add the Gothic horrors of the Old, Dark , House.

Still: Psycho, Alien, The Thing 82: great atmosphere.

TWO. "The kills." There turn out to be a lot of kills in 50's horror movies, but the first two REALLY graphic kills(by a human monster) come in Psycho. Great atmosphere, great kills. And its the same with Alien and The Thing 82. here are MORE kills in the later pictures, but in The Thing, its really TWO scenes for the best shock: The doctor scene and the "tests on the couch scene." Even in Alien, the two BEST kills are the chest-buster (John Hurt) and the sudden-death tunnel killing of Captain Tom Skerrit(he goes early in the movie -- like Janet Leigh -- and its a jump scare, like Martin Balsam.)

The Thing 82 and Psycho have one other connection: In 1982 cinematographer Dean Cundey shot The Thing, and in 1983 cinematographer Dean Cundey also shot...Psycho 2. The films have a somewhat similar look -- grays and greens dominate -- but somehow The Thing looks better. Longer schedule for careful shooting? Bigger budget?

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

The Thing 82 is always a fun re-watch for me. And it proved influential -- there' ANOTHER Thing(2011) which details what killed everybody BEFORE Thing 82 starts (its a prequel.) Also, in Thing 2011, "the hero is a girl." So much for that "all-male cast" from 82.

And then in 2015 came QT's "Hateful Eight," sharing a lead(Kurt Russell) some of the score(Ennio Morricone's Thing music, re-recorded) and, roughly, the setting (snowbound claustrophobic INN) of The Thing 1982. QT as much as said The Thing influenced The Hateful Eight -- and swore his allegiance TO The Thing 1982.

There are a lot of horror movies out there, but I'd say that The Thing(all 3 versions), Alien, IT the Terror Beyond Space AND Psycho are all bound together, part of the same mix. The monsters. The kills. The atmosphere. The lasting fame.

Still, for today, I will honor John Carpenter's The Thing. Happy 40th Anniversary, Thing!

PS. Back to IT -- in the 1958 film, "rescuing astronauts" find a sole survivor of a slaughter on another ship and put him in their spaceship jail cell -- they suspect him of murder. He's the wrong man! Once IT is fingered, he is released. Wasn't this the same set up with Sigourney Weaver in Aliens?

[–] Arasaid (197) 2 years ago

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Thank you for reading.

The Thing is #1 in my book.

---

I'm reminded that in Tarantino's "Death Proof" Kurt Russell(star of The Thing) tells a young woman that she's "alright in my book," and then produces an actual small book and writes her name in it. Unfortunately, Russell is playing a serial killer.

The Thing of 1982 is very high up there in my book, too. I liked everything about it. Except what happened to the dogs, but ...well they had to go, too.

I think part of what I'm trying to suggest here is that the "horror shocks" of Psycho circa 1960 soon became passe , and absolutely SWAMPED by other horror films as the decades moved on. Night of the Living Dead, Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist, Jaws, Carrie, The Omen, Alien...and in the 80s, the sequels and remakes came: Psycho II, The Thing, The Fly, The Blob...plus the slashers and Freddy Krueger.

On the other hand, though they couldn't be R-rated and bloody, the ORGINAL "Thing"(1951) and IT The Terror Beyond Space (1958)were part of a brigade of teen-friendly horror movies that led TO Psycho.

[–] Arasaid (197) 2 years ago

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Kurt Russell is very key to the success of The Thing. It was made when he was younger and perhaps at his most handsome. He was macho but could play funny and here, a little scared. And rocked that hat!

Quentin Tarantino has used Kurt Russell three times now:

Death Proof: as a serial killer who uses his car to kill women.

The Hateful Eight: A snowbound "horror mystery Western" that uses Ennio Morricone's original music from The Thing in several scenes and shares that movie's snowy claustrophobia. Russell starring here brings back strong memories of The Thing.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: A short scene as a stunt coordinator and then he narrates the fateful third act about Sharon Tate and the Manson Family.

[–] Arasaid (197) 2 years ago

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